


London Triptych (The Government, The Detective, The Doctor)

by paxlux



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, OT3, Other, Sibling Incest, case-related gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-03
Updated: 2011-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:12:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxlux/pseuds/paxlux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is new.  John likes new.  He’d never expected this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	London Triptych (The Government, The Detective, The Doctor)

**Author's Note:**

> This hasn’t been de-Americanized past anything I do on the fly, so apologies for the occasional stupidity. (This is not part of my Physics 'verse; this is separate, stand-alone; just FYI.)

This is new. John likes new.

He’d never expected this. His mum has stories of him, climbing the highest trees, then all but falling out on the way down; staring at the tigers in the zoo, like maybe he might wrestle them – once, they lost him only to discover he was talking to the honey badgers as they tore into their noon meal; walking along the side of the road, one foot in front of the other, steady, because he was off to see the world at six years old, or so he told his dad, and he didn’t run, he was ready to put his fist against the world’s door and see what answered.

He’s always wanted danger, and he doesn’t mind the demanding pace; he finds danger after careful searching or he waits for it to come to him.

John’s never been in a hurry, unless there’s a gasping body bleeding all over his clothes, and even then, he feels time slow, his hands moving almost on their own because it’s nothing, he can do this.

He’ll stare down the darkness. It doesn’t scare him.

It’s a bit like camouflage. John knows he’s a right normal bloke; he likes a cuppa and a night in, maybe a pint at the pub and some lazybrain crap telly, maybe a bit of a book before bed. He loves his warm jumpers and his easy cotton button-downs; plaid reminds him of his grandfather, a man who was a soldier, like John, who told him stories and let John play with his medals and pocketwatch.

He can do laundry and cook meagerly and he can see the morbidity of life and death. He’s a doctor because he wanted to help, he wanted to save because he’ll stare down the darkness and it doesn’t scare him. Instead, it makes him angry.

Meeting Sherlock is new. The chattering specter of a man with the shock of dark hair and jolt of light colour-shifting eyes and the brain that is the purest definition of infinite. John knows Sherlock will lead him into the valley of the shadow of death, but he will fear no evil.

He never has.

Now with Sherlock, he has a chance of electrocution almost every day, with every murder and robbery and kidnapping and experiment Sherlock conducts in their home.

It helps John’s heart beat, his blood flow, his limbs move, his brain function.

Sherlock’s a proper bastard, but John doesn’t always care because he has the heart of a city-dweller; people matter and manners matter, but civility is a way to sidestep everyone while keeping harmony. It’s necessary window-dressing, and sometimes John is entirely too amused to let Sherlock rip down the curtains to peer at the people behind them as they scramble to hide their secrets.

And there’s Mycroft. With Sherlock, there’s always Mycroft.

There’s something about Mycroft John can’t put his finger on, the quiet and subtle way the man threatened John with his heavy knowledge of John’s life and personality, how he sought and acquired his information without having to even touch John, only look at him. He’s like his younger brother: their minds beyond limitation, their voices of rich shades of honeyed black, their demon-fiend smiles that draw John in as if he’s about to sell his soul, though where Sherlock is the incendiary explosion of a bullet, Mycroft is the silent slide of a blade, and John doesn’t underestimate either one of them.

Sherlock’s very own archenemy, and John secretly thinks they like it that way, a danger to themselves and others, mostly themselves as brothers, because their genius has crafted a reality solely between the two of them, elevating them to a higher stratum of dangerous.

John’s always wanted danger.

He never knows what each day will bring with the two of them. He’s stopped trying to guess.

This is new. He likes new.

-

He dreams of rocking movement, side to side. It's night and the sand and mountains are dark blue, turning black as they go past.

In his dream, he's in a Humvee, medical transfer, and he's talking with the Americans. They're comparing stories about food, what they miss most and how he has to try true Southern cornbread and beans and dirty rice, or a proper clam chowder in a sourdough bowl, and the Americans start arguing, their regional accents going deeper, so fast he can't keep up and he's laughing, our beer is better than your American piss, and you can't beat chips, night or day. Please tell me one of you lot drinks _actual_ tea.

Then there's a yell, outside. Here, the sounds are everywhere, they echo like there are multiple universes piled into one area and it's impossible to triangulate the direction of noise.

A yell, then the destructive _pop-pop_ , bullets, and the Humvee grinds to a stop and he's waiting, the Americans gone silent under their helmets.

Muzzle-fire out in the blue-black, then _pop-pop._

The bonnet starts smoking.

They abandon the Humvee for a large stand of rocks.

One of the Americans is shot in the stomach, groaning over a rock. John is spun sideways and his own blood looks blue-black—

“John! _John!_ ”

“Yes, yes.” John’s struggling, twisted in his pyjamas and the sheets and Sherlock appears at the foot of the bed.

“Lestrade just called. A body. Throat out, teeth taken,” Sherlock says, helping him untangle and it’s not necessarily an act of kindness as it is an act of impatience. “I’ve got a taxi waiting downstairs, so get dressed. Or just throw on a coat.”

He’s still wearing the dream, his blood running fast and his skin is overheated and he’s almost falling out of bed.

Sherlock’s eyeing him. “You’ve had a nightmare.”

“Yes, well done,” John grunts, searching about for his clothes, then Sherlock’s handing him trousers, a shirt, a jumper, and whirling away to find John’s shoes, presumably, but he doesn’t leave the room, he simply waits.

John isn’t embarrassed, but it is unnerving, having Sherlock’s presence with him in a semi-vulnerable state and he’s hurrying.

“Are you out of it?”

“Out? It?”

“The nightmare,” Sherlock says, low, almost concerned and John is bemused. “I’ll need my blogger along, but not if he’s still stuck in Afghanistan.”

He might still be asleep. “No, it’s fine. Taxi. Throat. Teeth. Lestrade. Let’s go.”

Sherlock smiles, another happy day with another corpse and he hands John into his coat on the way out the door.

A new crime scene, abandoned buildings, the city murmurs are pushed off in the distance and there’s blood on the asphalt. The young man was killed here.

Sherlock is loudly berating the forensics for some lack of brain cells or possibly just for turning the body before he got there and John knows he should go and calm the storm, but it’s a unique sight: Sherlock cast in profile against the bright police lights, coat thrown around him and Lestrade is almost toe-to-toe with him.

They look like art, chiaroscuro, tossed against a wall.

John goes to look at the body, snapping on gloves, hunching down, and the movement still feels different, he hadn’t been able to do this a few months ago and thought he never would again.

The throat has been ripped out and he glances around. It’s lying nearby, a small jagged bundle of flesh and hyoid bone; thyroid, cricoid, and epiglottic cartilage; arytenoid, corniculate and cuneiform cartilage; and John checks deeper – the trachea and larynx have also been torn away. A miracle the head hasn’t been completely severed from the spinal column.

A nasty, vicious attack, but the killer left everything within arm’s reach and he remembers the missing teeth. In front of him, Lestrade’s arguing with Sherlock about something and being able to check the body alone is bliss for John, without Sherlock swirling around him like a disruptive act of nature.

He pries open the mouth and pulls up the lips. The upper bridge of teeth missing, canine to canine.

Lestrade shakes his head and Sherlock crosses his arms, then there’s a crunch and a black car discreetly rolls up, coming to a stop safely outside the tape.

Mycroft, and the elder Holmes steps out, avoiding a standing puddle. Sherlock scowls and deserts Lestrade, making a beeline to the car.

John abandons his surface autopsy because the Holmes brothers pull his attention in ways that annoy him, so immediate and demanding, as if they’d snapped their fingers. He watches the brothers talk, Sherlock in a flurry of movement as if he’s vibrating, Mycroft with a tilt of his head and a smirk. The lights are flung over them like water, washing them clean and stark, and they’re so alike, dark-haired, spark-eyed, long tall lines. Their shadows mingle.

Mycroft reaches out as they talk, straightening and smoothing Sherlock’s suit jacket under his coat and to John’s surprise, the detective allows it, as if he doesn’t even notice and he steps closer, allowing Mycroft better access. He catches Mycroft’s wrist to make a point, his voice rising a little, but then he doesn’t let go and Mycroft leans in as if they’re sharing secrets.

John feels a shake in his stomach watching them, like he used to get in the roar of helicopters. A shudder of want and eerie premonition, but he dismisses it. He’s still wearing the dream. Suddenly, he needs to kill time, probing carefully around the body for any other wounds – an otherwise healthy young male, superficial wound to the forehead, threaded abrasions and bruising on the wrists and ankles, petechial hemorrhage of the eyes.

Restraint. Asphyxiation.

“The body, John?” Sherlock asks.

“All yours.”

“Hello, John,” Mycroft says and John tries to ignore how his name sounds in Mycroft’s voice, different from how Sherlock says it, but they both send a frisson through him; Sherlock says his name often and John’s still not used to it; Mycroft doesn’t say his name every day and it makes him unsteady to hear it; he peels off the gloves, takes his time standing to regain his equilibrium.

“Mycroft, hello,” John says, ignoring a little spin of dizziness. “Out for a stroll?”

Mycroft laughs. “At night, to a crime scene, where my brother and his flatmate are hindering the police? Where else would I be?”

“The government boring as all that?”

“This is infinitely more fascinating.”

It might be the lights, the slide of the shadows, but Mycroft’s eyes gleam and John swallows as Mycroft smiles.

“I had a matter that required Sherlock’s expertise,” he says as Sherlock slips a nicotine patch under his sleeve, already circling the corpse.

“You’re not allowed to use that word around him,” John replies.

“’Expertise’?”

“Yes, you’ll only encourage him.”

Mycroft laughs and the dizziness is back before John can fight it off.

Sherlock sees everything John noticed, he can tell, but he’s curious, his stomach held waiting to hear what Sherlock has to pronounce outside of John’s observation, even though he words it in the most disappointing fashion, ‘here’s what you missed, John, which is just about everything.’

Sherlock’s brilliance is a flame and John wants to put his hands in it.

Mycroft clears his throat and John glances over and he’s knocked a little sideways; while he’s been watching Sherlock, Mycroft’s been watching him and he instantly wants to know what Mycroft sees, but Mycroft just says, “Tell him to call me when he has something.”

“I will.” John nods and Mycroft smiles again, then he disappears out of the police lights back to his car.

Lestrade says something and Sherlock snipes back, but John stares at the car until it rounds the corner in a flare of red.

“John!”

“I don’t come when you call, you know. Not your pet poodle.”

Sherlock laughs as if that’s exactly what John is and John cuts him off before he can say anything, a shake of his head, _don’t start_.

The detective is pointing at various areas on the body, laying out the details like blueprints and John lets the fascination take him over, as if he’s losing oxygen, freefalling through high altitudes.

Sherlock’s flame is wild bright-blinding and Mycroft’s burns at a slightly higher temperature and between the two of them, John might step inside and be consumed into ash.

-

He climbs the stairs, one foot at a time, which sounds ludicrous, how else do you climb stairs, but it’s been a long, hard day and he’s tired. His last patient was a young, crying mother and her young, crying baby; he feels himself frowning and there are small, sticky, almost invisible handprints on his sleeve.

He doesn’t see Mycroft until he leans against the doorjamb.

“ _Bloody hell_ ,” John says, immediately on guard. “You’re like a ghost, did you know that.” He breathes for a moment as Mycroft laughs.

“I haunt this flat because I have unfinished business,” he says and John knows enough to be wary, but he hangs up his coat and heads to the kitchen.

“You mean Sherlock and his ‘expertise’.”

“Do you think I meant you?” Mycroft likes to intimidate using simple tricks, turning the statement back on a person, John’s noticed; take a simple object and make it shining sharp. “Though I imagine you are a bit of unfinished business.”

John eyes him, fighting down a hot shiver, kettle in hand because he couldn’t have heard that – no, Mycroft just means whatever he means since he hasn’t had a chance to read John yet today. “I’m going to imagine you didn’t say that the way you said it. I’ll ignore it and offer you tea instead. Though I don’t know why.”

“You’re not afraid of me, you know I’m perfectly capable of _not_ killing you over tea.”

“I know you _are_ perfectly capable of killing over tea,” Sherlock says abruptly from the door, unwinding his scarf and John’s jaws snap down on another instant rush, the swaying sensation in his head, as if Sherlock is fire and John’s got smoke inhalation. He sighs, calls over the sound of water, “Just what I need, the pair of you ready to kill each other over tea. I just cleaned up last night. Do _not_ get blood on the rug.”

He’s ready to call down the fight, ready to get between them. He suddenly hears his heartbeat in his ears.

Mycroft scuffs his shoe over the rug. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, John, but it’s a deep red colour. It should hide blood stains magnificently.”

“I’m not going to dispose of any bodies you bring to bleed all over the rug,” Sherlock says, waving an impatient hand, _get out of my chair_ , and Mycroft obliges with a slight frown and Sherlock keeps talking. “Now what’re you doing here, Mycroft.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” John says between his teeth, making a tactical retreat into the kitchen, realising he’s still holding the kettle and he wonders how much damage he could inflict with it as his only weapon. He might have to use it on himself.

“Good, good,” Sherlock says absentminded with the newspaper in his lap, as if he’s in disguise. “Keep repeating that, John. Make it your mantra. Now what are you doing here.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Mycroft says and Sherlock replies, “If you needed an escape, why didn’t you just go home and spare us.”

“You’re an endless source of amusement, Sherlock, and I know there was another body.”

John’s learned to listen to them because they like to verbally deconstruct him (much to his disconcerted chagrin) and slyly manipulate him into doing minor tasks for them, ‘legwork,’ so he’s surprised to hear this about another body. He hastily leaves the kettle going, but he can’t get a word in edgewise yet, not with Sherlock on the warpath.

“I’m not here to provide you with _amusement_. You want amusement, go back to work, start a war, invade a small hapless country,” Sherlock retorts.

“Ah, but that is so tiresome. I needed a change of venue,” Mycroft says, calm, toying with a thread on John’s chair; he always requisitions John’s chair, as if he’s annexing part of 221b.

Sherlock glares, eyes narrowing. “So you invade Baker Street. I didn’t see any tanks on my way here. You’re learning to be so much more subtle.”

“So your killer disregards gender,” Mycroft says and John recognises the tactic because sometimes Sherlock needs to be brought back to the task at hand, the ever-wandering intellect like a genius child who chases only the shiny things.

“ _My_ killer, possibly, and what do you care. Stop listening to gossip.”

“ _Our_ killer,” John interrupts, he is not about to be left out of this, even at the price of ‘legwork.’

Mycroft smoothes past everything. “Oh, I just thought this bit of ‘gossip’ would be more interesting than discussing the weather.”

John’s surveying them, arms crossed, because the brothers are lost in their world again and he seems to be the only one who remembers the actual important fact at the moment. “ _Another_ body. A _second_ body. Is that what you were texting me about?” He fishes around in his pocket, pulling out his phone and he feels a flash of annoyance. “ _He’s done it again_. Very succinct, Sherlock, very, very informative.”

“Well, who else would I’ve meant?” Sherlock says, sighing, and John shifts his weight, irritation making his spine and wrists itch, the fighter starting to emerge.

Sometimes Sherlock seems to be genuinely _ignorant_ : he regularly wonders how John functions; John regularly wonders how _Sherlock_ functions.

“Mycroft,” he says, pointing, “for one. Lestrade. Dimmock. Anderson.”

“Anderson,” Sherlock sneers.

“Any male person we know who gets on your nerves. Which would be every male person we know.”

“’He’ _is_ a gender-specific pronoun, John, but in this case, since the killer’s gender is unknown—“

“You don’t know? Is Lestrade as disappointed in you as I am?” John feigns surprise because he knows how much it nettles Sherlock and Mycroft grins as Sherlock waves at John as if he’s smudging him.

“Shut up. I used ‘he’ as a general pronoun rather than ‘it’ because the killer is a person and not an object.”

“In other words, _it_ could be a woman who gets on your nerves. Male or female. The entire human race,” John provides, shaking his head. “That narrows it down. Quite illuminating, Sherlock. Well done.”

Mycroft laughs and Sherlock glares knife-points at the both of them. “Isn’t tea ready yet,” he says, going for menacing but it only further amuses Mycroft and John is becoming exasperated. His blood is rising too, hot and overheating.

He really could kill someone with the kettle. Maybe Mycroft can hire him as an assassin.

“Why aren’t we at the crime scene,” John asks, he is patient, he can be patient, he _can be_.

“Lestrade is cleaning something up; there were...issues. I already told him he is wasting valuable time and data and the scene _won’t wait forever_ —“

“The teeth are missing,” Mycroft redirects, still picking at the thread on John’s chair.

And Sherlock inclines his head, expression clearing, steepling his fingertips together. “Yes, the teeth are missing.”

-

Being in the flat with both the Holmes brothers is like being in an iron lung.

John exists as if caught, suspended, some sort of sensory deprivation except he experiences overmuch.

It’s only been four months since he moved into 221b and Mycroft kidnapped him and Sherlock read him down to his buttons and soles.

When Mycroft and Sherlock are in the flat together, he can feel it, like a displacement in the air, the molecules being pushed further apart, and Sherlock would like that, John basing his hunches on the measurable distances between air molecules.

The Holmes brothers sitting across from each other like generals negotiating a truce for the future history of the world, two pairs of light eyes carrying on an entire complex conversation he will never be privy to; it’s their own language and John is lucky enough to be a translator for some of it.

"It’s fine, John, sit down, I won't bite," Mycroft says and John’s skin doesn’t fit right, he feels ridiculous because he isn't afraid of the brothers.

“Bite. Teeth. Ha,” he says and Mycroft smiles as if John’s said something clever.

They fascinate him like nothing else in his life ever has; he knocked on the world’s door and this is who answered. He hovers in the room, expecting a new fight to progress, that push-pull like gravity they draw between them as easily as a toy.

Neither of them looks at him, which he dislikes, how they know he’s there without seeing him.

Chairs pulled close, their legs are almost tangled though their postures are elegantly relaxed, as if they have been discussing the weather instead of another gruesome murder; John knows different, he knows they're both dangerous, the weather is the least of their worries. So is the murder.

Mycroft glances at him and he immediately feels taken apart like a machine, as if the older brother holds a key to John’s chest and Mycroft’s blue gaze twists it in that single second to make him spill open.

"I hope I'm not intruding," Mycroft says and John thinks, It’s a little late for that, and Mycroft taps his fingers once, twice. "A little late for an apology, I know, I merely stopped by to see how the case was coming along."

"'Merely'?" Sherlock smirks, rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "There is nothing to discuss, Mycroft."

"It's coming along," John says, to keep the peace, besides Mycroft probably knows more than they do. “Teeth aren't exactly my area of expertise, so we're waiting on forensics.”

Sherlock huffs, impatient with everything, not just John (it took a few weeks before he learned this) and Mycroft shoots his brother a swift look of reprimand.

John pushes his breath out. “And now, a second body. Apparently. So I guess it’s really coming along. All downhill from here."

That makes them look at John.

They're both dangerous in a completely different way from how he’s dangerous, they could kill someone with a carefully selected phrasing of words and John just pulls a trigger.

He’s been involved in troop movements, strategic missions, dealing with the bloodied fallout from reconnaissance and ambush. He’s performed battlefield surgeries under threat of heavy gunfire and then protected his patients and himself with his own bullets.

He’s taken a shot to the shoulder and seen his blood pour out and mix in the dirt of another country.

These two don't need to pull a trigger, though John knows Sherlock can, and with good aim, and he’d bet Mycroft is just the same. They don't need to be soldiers.

They can destroy the world and remake it in their image because they can do whatever they want. It's all in their heads, that ability John sees rushing in them with the hard push of blood from their hearts.

He shivers because he’s fascinated by them and all that staggering focus is on him, his nerves going haywire under his skin; Mycroft raises an eyebrow and Sherlock smiles as if he—dammit, _both of them_ know what John’s thinking.

John is jolted by a threaded hook of nervous anticipation, as if there’s a brewing storm. He hasn’t felt like this since he first took a scalpel to living flesh.

Mycroft shifts to see him better and Sherlock's grin curls into something dark, his eyes pulling John even further apart, sifting through his clockwork parts.

"Do you think the murderer is keeping the teeth for some particular use?" Mycroft asks, voice polished high-shine, and John wishes he'd learned to have his words flow so well; it's one of the things that antagonised him when he first met Sherlock, then Mycroft, how they knew about John’s life, John’s secrets, how Sherlock guessed his military career and family squabbles, how Mycroft tested his loyalty issues and knew he desperately missed the call of adrenaline, and yet they said it all in such a luxuriant cast-off way.

"Vanity," John says because he’s been thinking about it ever since the, well, now, first body was found. "He sees something in those six or so teeth he needs. Everything revolves around them. His world doesn't work without them."

He ignores the blatant metaphor to his current situation and runs his tongue over his molars.

"Like a kleptomaniac," Sherlock says, amused, his voice dropping an octave.

“John’s on the right path,” Mycroft says and John smiles because he’s on the right path, but they’re ignoring him again and it’s like an out-of-body experience.

Sherlock rubs at his chin. “He doesn’t crush the teeth, extracting from the jaw, it’s not as if he’s using pliers to yank them.”

John makes a face; they don’t see it and Mycroft sighs. “He takes his time. He cherishes them.”

“He needs the teeth, he’s used to them, he keeps them.”

“They feel like home. He’s been surrounded by teeth his whole life, he sees them everywhere. Fresh. They’re there for the taking. Plunder.”

He thinks, The killer’s not a pirate, and the thought makes him want to laugh, but John holds it in as Sherlock closes his eyes, palms pressed together.

"He must study his victims’ mouths up close. Get them to talk, make them smile, have them laugh so they show him their teeth."

"Handing themselves over without knowing it," Mycroft says, frowning and Sherlock smirks at his brother without opening his eyes.

“Like going to the dentist.”

Black admiration in their voices, John can hear it, _it’s all so easy_ ; they trade thoughts like nothing, a lifetime habit between the siblings and electricity sparks in sharp stars along John’s spine. He shivers and coughs to cover it, thinking yet again how fucking morbid he is because this is what he likes best: hearing the truth be spun out of thin air like magic made possible in the real world.

They could take apart reality.

They could take him apart some day. He thinks maybe they will.

He thinks Sherlock could deduce him by touch, without a word, without a sound, his fingers testing the vibrations of John’s body and he would pass them on to Mycroft who could pull deeper secrets from each little tremor. One to read him, one to coax his response from him. They're watching him now; they could tear him down with their eyes and their voices and he wants it.

He needs to do something with his hands. "Tea?"

“Mycroft is leaving," Sherlock says, gaze blazing sudden, like a quick turn-flare at a lighthouse, and Mycroft stands, the faint pinstripes of his suit drawing John’s eye.

"I believe John has offered me tea, Sherlock, it would be rude to say no," he says, "and I'm in no hurry. The police in Budapest can—" He smiles and John would think it's mischievous if he didn't know better. "Never mind. Yes, John, thank you. May I be of assistance?"

His brother makes a noise of derision and the two of them glare at Sherlock something awful apparently because he glares back, giving double.

"Careful, John, he might drug you," Sherlock warns oddly, grasping John’s elbow with a malevolent smirk and Mycroft's smile _is_ turning mischievous.

John doesn't want to know. Really. He doesn't. And he isn’t thinking about their matching Cheshire grins.

"Why on earth would—no, no." His hands are moving nervous on their own and Sherlock’s staring at them. " _Tea._ "

-

Mycroft carries the mugs and John catches himself watching his fingers, he always seems to be watching their fingers, Mycroft’s and Sherlock’s, another family resemblance in the long, clever fingers and he grabs a chair from the shared work table, pulling it alongside the other two.

Quiet in the flat as they sip their tea and John welcomes the heat into his palms. It’s grounding him, that and his feet on the floor.

“How do we know he isn’t a dentist,” he asks with a thought out of the blue and they both glance at him, Mycroft’s eyes lighting as if John’s said something incredibly shrewd and Sherlock’s mouth twists.

“Simple, John. We don’t,” Sherlock replies and John burns his tongue on his tea.

“Oh, we don’t, right. So that was all—“ he waves between the brothers—“bit of guesswork then.”

“Conjecture,” Sherlock corrects and Mycroft says, “Inference,” and they’ve forgotten him again to wage a silent battle, so John says, “Semantics, we all have vocabularies. The point is he _could_ be a dentist.”

“The quality of the tooth extraction is good, cautious but not professional. He knows enough to take the teeth with the roots attached and not smash them out with, say, a hammer, or, as was suggested earlier, pliers,” Sherlock explains, rapid-fire, ignoring John’s grimace, “but there is still enough damage to the gum area and the surrounding teeth to show he isn’t educated or trained in dentistry.” He flicks his fingers dismissively. “Anyone can use the internet.”

“Unfortunately,” Mycroft says. “So many amateurs out there with their supposed professional websites.” His gaze cuts to Sherlock and John takes a huge too-hot sip of tea to hide his laugh, but the implication isn’t lost on Sherlock, his expression cross.

“So, not dentistry, but someone who covets teeth,” John says between coughs before any impending danger can appear. “Why. Revenge for years of dental torture?”

But Sherlock’s busy messing with his phone and Mycroft’s checking his pocketwatch, so John drinks his tea and wonders why a collector collects.

Curiosity. Demand. They covet. They want, they need, they have to _have_. Something they don’t already possess.

He knows the impulse.

“Come along, John, Lestrade has finally summoned us.”

“It’s a miracle you just didn’t descend upon him,” John says, yet again wishing for a thermos; he always forgets. “Common courtesy isn’t one of your strongest characteristics.” He stands, gathering cups because the brothers just dash away and leave them by their chairs, Mycroft already reaching for his coat and umbrella, Sherlock winding on his scarf. John thinks not for the first time and certainly not for the last that he seems to be the only one with an iota of common sense.

It’s left to John to make sure they aren’t up to their elbows in mould and vagrant vermin. Outside of any ‘experiments’ Sherlock’s conducting.

When he steps out of the kitchen, slipping into his coat and checking he’s got everything in his pockets, they’re tracking his movements, a shared odd expression for what John awkwardly realises is an odd domestic scene; he sees brief shadows cross their faces, as if they’re linked and thinking the same thing, and they immediately glance at each other.

Mycroft gives a small nod and Sherlock’s mouth curls at the corner and John isn’t fluent enough to translate this.

He clears his throat. “So. Lead on.”

“Good thing you have a strong stomach, John,” Mycroft says. “The delay was certainly warranted.”

“I don’t want to know how you know, just tell me,” John intones; he’s learning, too quickly, and Sherlock grins, like electricity was just discovered.

“Dogs.”

-

Lestrade’s gazing at a twisted mass, hands behind his back, expression curious and Sherlock ignores him to rush over to the remains.

“Sherlock, _hello_ ,” Lestrade calls after the detective, a half-hearted reprimand, then he says, “Hello, John,” and nods at the corpse. “Bet this makes your day, doesn’t it.”

“Keeps it interesting,” John replies.

“Adds to my paperwork.”

“Wouldn’t want you to kip at your desk.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

“Heaven forbid.”

The corpse has been dumped in a forgotten corner of an alley, under a wet overhang of bricks and concrete. Bite marks everywhere, red and torn and it’s mostly whole. Mostly. Certainly ‘remains.’

Sherlock’s swirling about the body, little magnifying glass telescoped open, and his scowl is getting deeper and deeper in his face, shadows under his cheekbones.

“ _Unacceptable,_ Lestrade. Just because there were dogs—“

“Animal control, Sherlock.” John should get a medal, a knighthood, for all he keeps the peace. “They wanted to give you a proper view of the body.”

Lestrade smiles, fast as thought, then carefully schools his expression. “Unobstructed. Unhampered.”

“Without animals,” John says.

Sherlock stares them as if they’re completely untrustworthy, dishonest alien beings. “Here’s hoping, for your sake, Lestrade, any or all of the dogs didn’t eat the trachea.”

“It was a close thing. We had money on it. One of the forensics had to coax it away from the jaws of doom.”

“Doom,” Sherlock says, eyes narrowing, hunched as if he’s a vulture, carrion at his feet.

John’s having a lark, this is fun, Sherlock snappish and tipped sideways like an upended teapot, and John’s pocket vibrates.

 _Remind him it’s easier to inspect a corpse when one’s leg isn’t being gnawed on by a rabid canine. He does so hate distractions when he’s working. MH_

John laughs, breaking the sombre air of the crime scene and Sherlock hmphs in the back of his throat.

“Tell Mycroft to keep his nose out of this. He can use it to go find sweets instead,” Sherlock snarls and John shakes his head.

“Tell him yourself. And while you’re at it, tell him the Big Brother act isn’t as impressive anymore.”

Which is a lie, but John lies to himself sometimes.

“John,” Sherlock says, waving a gloved hand. “Check the body.”

No please, no thank you, but John’s been in the military, he’s used to it, he’s used to _Sherlock_ and Lestrade gives him a sympathetic look, so John just shrugs, _what can you do,_ as he stretches on a pair of gloves.

“Throat’s been ripped out, like the other, obvious.” There isn’t much blood surrounding the body though there are stained splashes on the skin, from before the dogs found it. “Bruising on the wrists and ankles suggests restraint and the eyes…”

This poor woman was strangled too, her eyes having the blank, glassed stare of someone with the life slowly drained away through their mouth.

John parts her lips and his finger slips in, fast, no barrier. Her teeth are gone, canine to canine.

Canine, canine, the puns are getting worse, or are they homonyms, wait, homonyms are puns and this is what John’s life is like now because he’s hunkered next to a body, the second for this particular murderer, dumped for the rare, feral animals of London to find, like Sherlock, and he’s concerned about linguistics.

“Strangled. No bruising elsewhere, so it’s possible she wasn’t assaulted. I would think she’s naked—“

“To expose her to the elements. Dispose of the body faster or simply slow identification and data collection. All of the above,” Sherlock interrupts, deducing as if he’s an oracle, channeling information and John doesn’t actually care that Sherlock cut him off.

The truth is winding, a silver thread in the air, as gleaned by Sherlock, and John is hypnotised.

“We can’t keep waiting around for another body,” Lestrade says, coat pushed back with his arms akimbo. “Suggestions?”

“Pub,” Sherlock says and Lestrade grins.

“Always up for a pint.”

“You’re buying,” John says and Lestrade laughs in a short burst, “Alright, ‘cause I might be a poor policeman, but you have to put up with _him_ , so someone ought to be buying you a few rounds,” and Sherlock glowers at them, pacing.

“Not what I meant, what an imbecilic notion, I—“ He comes to a halt, hands out. “ _Oh_ , no, actually, brilliant, _brilliant_.” He claps once, decision made. “So. Who’s up to play bait?”

“ _No_ , Sherlock, no. We are not being your bait,” John says, emphatic, peeling off his gloves, he is not about to be drinking around possible murder suspects—

Sherlock’s eyes gleam. “Where’s your sense of adventure.”

John ignores how bright his gaze is, how deep-excited his voice is, that pure little boy adventurer look on his face. “Left it in bed this morning. Couldn’t be bothered.” He’s had a long day and at 2:37 earlier that morning, Sherlock had started playing, and besides how the music was haunted, aching, vibrant as if John could feel it in his chest, and Sherlock played as if the music was pouring from where he slit the violin’s throat, the fact is John’s still tired.

“He hunts in pubs, Lestrade,” Sherlock says, “he goes to the pubs instead of a club or restaurant because it’s where he’s most comfortable, he can hunt in plain sight and he goes there because that’s where the highest concentration of his prey will also be. He won’t make a scene or draw undue attention. Surrounded by people who are his peers,” and Lestrade’s pointing, almost jabbing at the air, “ _Which_ area, Sherlock, this is London. There are _a lot of bloody pubs._ ”

Sherlock throws up his hands and Lestrade pinches the bridge of his nose and John can smell an argument coming on.

He wanders far enough out of firing range and takes out his phone, thumb rubbing over the keys as Mycroft’s text sits on the screen.

 _He hates distractions, but I could use one. JW_

 _Another rather vocal discussion with Detective Inspector Lestrade. MH_

 _That doesn’t take omniscience. JW_

 _I’m flattered, John. A six-letter word for ‘microscopic.’ MH_

A crossword, and he gives a little laugh under his breath, it’s incongruous, he’s at a crime scene thinking of a six-letter word for ‘microscopic’ and Mycroft is humoring him, though John could hold his own for a while, the man’s vocabulary would rip John to shreds if he chose.

 _Who doesn’t like a nice distraction? MH_

Sherlock and Lestrade square off, words flying, and John sighs, sends a guess back to Mycroft. Between the two of them, they make it through a quarter of the clues until Sherlock looks as if he’s about to go nuclear.

“ _Ladies!_ ” John says, because this is his cue to step in.

“Why is the Yard _so impossible_?” Sherlock rejoins and the DI crosses his arms.

“Maybe you’re the one being impossible, Sherlock,” Lestrade shoots back.

Sherlock glances at John, _can you believe this utter tripe_ , and John shakes his head. “Pubs, Sherlock. What else. It comes back to the teeth and throat, doesn’t it.”

The detective still looks furious, colour high in his face, but he nods like a reluctant, petulant child.

“So work from there. What’s the timeline. Does he damage the throat first, then take the teeth or vice versa. The blood coagulation looks to be pretty close—“

And he doesn’t have to go any further because Sherlock is off, talking faster than language comprehension.

 _Once they’re done comparing intelligence quotients, tell Sherlock to look at the shoes. MH_

There’s something black like asphalt on her bare soles and grit, concrete dust maybe. Small cuts, like glass or broken debris. And the lightbulb in his brain cracks. He thinks, This one doesn’t have any shoes.

“Sherlock, her feet,” John says and Sherlock breaks off mid-sentence, grabbing John by the arm.

“Her _feet_.” His eyes widen, then narrow. “Have you been talking to Mycroft?”

John pulls himself up, mildly offended, steel soldier in his bones. “I have eyes, Sherlock. I can _see_.”

Sherlock smiles, thunderclap-loud, and squeezes John’s arm, making the blood shoot through his veins and John instantly smiles back.

“Her feet. Lestrade!”

-

The shoes of the first victim and the feet of the second lead them to where they started, in the district of the first crime scene, a block down and a block over. Abandoned buildings. Industrial compounds. And a third hurriedly discarded body.

“The open area and the dogs were an attempt, Lestrade, wanting to try something new, but it failed. Thus,” Sherlock says, sweeping his arms wide.

The police are still setting up the area, lights and tape and a canvas of the area, Lestrade is on his mobile and now Sherlock’s scarpered off with a grim expression and a whispered, “John, something’s not right.”

Mycroft’s car appeared not five minutes ago and he surveys the scene with a frown.

John sighs. Canine to canine. He gets them to laugh, smile, and then he takes what they’re showing him. Baring your teeth is a smile; in the animal kingdom, it’s a warning.

“Teeth?”

“Gone.”

“Canines,” Mycroft says and John smirks.

“Not today, dog catchers not required.”

Mycroft laughs as if John surprised it out of him. “Puns are despicable little things, aren’t they, but this case quite demands them.”

A noise and John is a little on edge as he looks over his shoulder; Sherlock is at a nearby window, the lights throwing colour onto his face and he’s staring at them, scowling.

“Sherlock’s spotted you,” John says, giving an inane wave with big inane smile and Mycroft breathes out.

“Yes, well, he knows why I’m here—“

“And why is that,” John interrupts, wry, because, really, where Sherlock is blunt and open, when his mind isn’t racing eleven steps ahead, Mycroft holds information near and dear as if it’s a weapon fit to kill. And it might be.

Mycroft smirks, so John matches it and Mycroft’s eyes flash in response.

“To share. So Sherlock can be upset over here. I won’t get into a shouting match across a crime scene,” and like a wish, Sherlock spins into existence next to them.

“Lestrade, this scene isn’t _clear_ ,” Sherlock is saying, hissing. “Something is wrong. This is too rushed, too busy; the other scenes are tidy and _where is the throat, where is the trachea_?”

A shout, a yell of, “another body, we’ve found another body, gunshot to the chest,” and everyone’s energised—

 _Pop-pop_. People are used to Hollywood gunfire, they don’t realise how guns sound in real life and John remembers the blue-black, but there’s no dust and mountains, just broken-jawed buildings. The police are scattering like troops under siege and then more gunshots from the buildings and his gun’s in his pocket, if he could pinpoint the shooter, the sounds here pile onto each other like the blue-black. The shots sound wild, fired into the air, echoing and then there’s the distinctive sharp hum, faster than John can see.

Glass shatters behind him.

He turns to see Mycroft pull at Sherlock, the demolished car window gaping like it might eat them.

And a slick red patch is spreading over Sherlock’s shirt, soaking into rich white fabric.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock says. “John.”

John’s brain stops pulsing and he grabs at the brothers, the three of them sliding down against the car and Sherlock’s blood is hot against his palms.

His mind goes blank, like it did in combat situations, and he’s performing battlefield medicine on Sherlock with the sounds of yelling behind him, lights breaking, and he can’t see.

“Sherlock, just— Mycroft—“ He doesn’t have anything to say, he’s working as fast as he can and he’s ruining those deceptively fragile, expensive lines and Sherlock’s breath hitches under his hands.

He grabs Mycroft’s palms and he doesn’t hear himself say it except as a drift of noise, _press here and keep pressing_.

He’s using Mycroft’s coat, stripping off his own and Mycroft’s driver appears, crouched low on the protected side of the car and John remembers the hell of it all, issuing orders: a scarf, an ambulance, _just fucking do it now!_

“John,” Mycroft says, that voice urgent-rich and glossy, and Sherlock’s blood feels the same way, and Sherlock echoes him, mouth moving, _John_ , his fingers digging into John’s thigh.

It’s a blur as two ambulances scream up. John climbs in the back with the EMTs and Sherlock, giving them the background information: the shooting, the condition of the wound, the bindings, the basic vitals.

He looks out the window as the ambulance speeds away and watches Mycroft’s car spray the crime scene with taillights as it speeds backwards to turn and chase them.

-

The nurse whispers his name and he’s shot awake, the room exploding into clarity and the nurse looks frightened, but he shakes his head, whispers, It’s okay, I’m sorry, it’s alright, what did you need.

She hands him a large envelope with _Dr. John Watson_ written on the outside, Lestrade’s handwriting, the letters a riot of loops and lines.

John opens the envelope and it looks empty until he shakes it. Then he stares down into it as if he's looking at the abyss.

Crime scene photographs.

Bloodstains on the concrete. He’s staring at the splotches when Mycroft appears, looking less like an angel of mercy and more like a vindictive demon bent on utter annihilation.

“John,” he says in greeting maybe, but John waves the photographs, points to where Mycroft’s little brother bled onto the industrial ground of London.

The dropped blotches are like a grotesque Rorschach test: John sees a moth, two wolves, a plane, Sherlock’s blood.

He tips the envelope more to find a note: _We got him. Hiding in the buildings. Interrupted homicide. More info later. Lestrade._

He watches Mycroft touch the bloodstains, skims his fingers over the red-brown uneven patch in the photograph, marked on the back with Sherlock’s name, as if to ground himself, as if he can communicate with Sherlock via the blood.

“You two look like pallbearers. Depressing. Stop being so melodramatic.” That imperious tone and Sherlock is glowering at them, a rupture of colour in hospital blue-white.

Mycroft says drily, “Melodrama is _your_ modus operandi, Sherlock. We would never rob you of an opportunity to use it, surely,” and John’s body turns without his say-so towards them both, Mycroft going to peer at a machine in his careful suit hiding a recklessness John can almost see, Sherlock smirking at Mycroft with the smile of the mischievous drugged.

Stupidly, John feels an overwhelming push of affection, then a plummet, as if he’s been shoved out a window.

He thinks, I’ve gone and fallen. He thinks, Two for the price of one.

The Holmes brothers will kill him some day.

“John?” Sherlock pronounces his name as if it’s a singular entity, a new word describing a new being, original and whole, and it makes John shake. “Your skills as a doctor are remarkable. No wonder the enemy shot you.”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” Mycroft says.

“I salute you.”

“No, just thank him.”

Sherlock grins, almost leering, and Mycroft’s frown is so long-suffering, John feels it in sympathy, then Mycroft darts into Sherlock’s eyeline.

“Not here,” he warns, almost out of earshot, and Sherlock looks up at his brother, mouth open in surprise.

“But his hands, Mycroft—“ and Mycroft stops him, says something, fingers on Sherlock’s chin to make sure he understands, and Sherlock tries to jerk out of his grasp.

For a moment, John pictures them as kids, fighting tooth and nail with that clinging, dependent edge.

And John has lost his mind.

He is so confused, _his hands, Mycroft_ , still holding the crime scene photographs, Sherlock’s blood on the concrete, Sherlock’s blood running down the sides of the sink as he washed it away, Sherlock’s blood—

“John, would you like a coffee.” Mycroft is suddenly near, his suit a little wrinkled because he hasn’t gone home yet, securing Sherlock’s surgeon and private room, taking care of all the hospital’s necessary evils while John rested his head against a mirror in the bathroom over running water.

There’s a large blotted smear of dried rust red across a stripe of Mycroft’s tie. The cuffs of his sleeves are dipped to match.

“Sherlock, you alright,” John says.

Sherlock thinks and it takes a few spaced seconds. “I’m intact. Mostly.”

Good enough. “Sure, coffee.”

He’s always found hospitals to be surreal, separate and broken and closed-off, a bit like a fever dream. Nothing is ever right, like a cracked bone, even when it’s set in place, because it’s not quite the same again.

It’s becoming more and more possible John’s lost his mind, somewhere between when the bullet hit Sherlock (and oh, he thought it’d hit both brothers, glass smashed everywhere, he thought it’d hit them all) and now, right now, now walking down the hallway with Mycroft leading the way, as if kidnapping John again, and he’d be perfectly happy with whatever scenario the two of them create for him with their unquestionably high-risk manner of scheming.

He licks his lips. The world feels hyperrealised. The squeaking of shoes on the tiles, and the hum of lights and machinery, the smell of sterile instruments and alcohol, and the charcoal gray of Mycroft’s jacket, he reaches out and snags him by the sleeve.

“Mycroft,” John says, but he doesn’t know what comes next. He feels slow, stupid and drugged, maybe he’s the one in the hospital bed, daydreaming this with a morphine drip in his arm.

But it’s real, because Mycroft catches his fingers then lets go and John lets his hand fall.

“You probably don’t need caffeine at present,” Mycroft says, “it might make things worse, but I thought a walk could clear your head.”

This John can deal with, the smooth façade. “I’m not in shock.”

“Oh, I know you aren’t, John. Maybe a walk could clear _my_ head.” And there, Mycroft’s polite smile slips at the curve of his mouth, so John nods.

“You aren’t in shock either.”

“I know that as well.” Hands in his pockets, like he’s searching for change, and John realises Mycroft doesn’t know what he’s doing either. This is _waiting_ , impatient, time-crawl waiting, and John’s had practice with it, Mycroft as well, but all their mastery is wearing thin. He sees the wrinkles in Mycroft’s veneer like the wrinkles in his suit and without thinking, he presses a thumb to the blood smear on Mycroft’s tie. Mycroft talks as if John’s pushed a button. “I should just chain him to you to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.”

“I think I’d call this trouble,” John admits.

Staring up at the lights, Mycroft replies, “Besides, I couldn’t be that cruel.”

“Sherlock would hate it.”

“I meant to you. You don’t deserve that punishment,” Mycroft says, smiling and John laughs crookedly, he can’t think about Mycroft being ‘cruel’ (bruises in the shape of fingerprints on John’s skin) as a nurse bustles up to them.

“Mr. Holmes? He’s asking for you.”

“Please, if you would accompany me, John, he might start yelling,” Mycroft says. “You know how he is.”

“Oh yes.”

He lets Mycroft go in alone and Sherlock goes straight to mouthing off; John can read a few choice words, before Sherlock captures Mycroft by the lapel to talk closer, as if Mycroft can’t already hear him.

All John hears is the flow of their voices, then Sherlock gives Mycroft a little push, a kind of _off you go_ ; Mycroft brushes a hand through his brother’s dark curls, fingers tracing along Sherlock’s forehead, and Sherlock closes his eyes.

When he gets into the room, Sherlock’s well on his way into sleep and Mycroft’s palm slips over John’s shoulders, warm at the nape of his neck, then he disappears.

So John sits with a newspaper and watches Sherlock sleep.

He thinks, I’ve gone and fallen.

Bloody hell.

-

A shot to the shoulder, high, up under the collarbone and a handful of centimeters higher, it would’ve shattered the bone; a handful and a half lower, it would’ve split Sherlock’s heart.

Clean shot, clean wound, luck, so it’s a matter of keeping Sherlock still until it can heal properly; the almost-week in hospital isn’t so bad, Sherlock confined to a bed and IV, but once he’s released to John and let loose in the flat, keeping Sherlock still is like putting an elephant in a refrigerator and John thinks he didn’t necessarily earn his stripes in battle, he’s earning them here.

Sherlock alternates between excitable (“matching scars, John, who doesn’t like scars?”) and plunging into his black moods, wandering 221b as solemn as a graveyard ghost with as much ennui as he can muster. John takes away his violin, since it puts a strain on his shoulder and arm and Sherlock reacts as if John’s taken away the meaning of life, draping himself on the sofa in a slipslide of pyjamas, bandages, dressing gown and long, floating limbs.

“John. _John_.”

“What. Sherlock.”

“I’ve run out of tea.” His deep voice shouldn’t sound so pitiful, the sharps of his cheekbones helping him pout in some sort of _help me_ expression. He catches the hem of John’s jumper as John tries to scoot past and he gives a tug, strength belying his current delicate, wounded disguise. “John.” Sherlock tugs again, as if it’s a bellpull attached directly to John and John stares down at him in annoyance. “Tea.”

Jogging footsteps on the stairs, and John’s learning from the brothers. “Let Lestrade get it for you.”

“Lestrade? He can make tea better than he can detect?”

“I think I’ll take that as an insult,” Lestrade says, stepping into the flat proper and Sherlock releases John, stretching to see the DI better.

“Dog catcher,” he says, “animal control,” and Lestrade looks briefly surprised, then as if he’s remembered where he is, saying, “Yeah, you were right,” and John can tell that _yet again_ he’ll have to make the tea and –

“Wait, dog catcher, animal control?”

Lestrade nods. “Sherlock guessed—“

“Deduced,” Sherlock corrects.

“The killer was possibly in some field related to animal control.”

“Why,” John says, trying to be patient, he can, he _can be_.

Sherlock is inordinately pleased, even more than with his new gunshot status and his hands start moving quickly. “He had to be working class, blue collar, educated but not overly so, mingling with others in pubs, no one working too high in an office nor no one unemployed. He most likely had a childhood trauma relating to—“

“We researched fatal dog attacks in the past fifteen to twenty years,” Lestrade says, almost in revenge for Sherlock’s earlier interruption. “See who was still around.”

“Dog attacks,” John echoes. He’s beginning to be angry. “Because.”

“The teeth, John, _the teeth and the throats_. Our killer witnessed brutality and savagery, someone or something attacked by a dog, with the result of the throat being ripped out,” Sherlock says, sounding too excited by half. “It scarred him. A therapist would say he made a transference: he most likely began to see it in people, whether they were capable of it too.”

John sighs, hard. “Canines.” There’s a jabbing pain starting behind his eyes.

Lestrade pulls a file from his jacket. “And look what else we found.” He flips through some pages and then points.

A work log with the date and time of the second corpse.

“The killer _was still there_? Doing the animal control you called him in for,” John says and now he’s angry, holding it in, he can feel it filling him like blood. Four deaths and Sherlock shot. “You were going to share this information when?”

The DI is a good man John genuinely likes and respects, especially right now because he looks shocked John didn’t know, but then he and Sherlock sense John’s change in mood. Lestrade takes a slight step back, as if he’s shifting his weight and John is darkly pleased: it’s a good survival instinct, to be able to tell when someone turns homicidal.

But of course, Sherlock _ignores_ this instinct and flicks his wrist at John. “It was still early days.”

Tapping the file against his leg, Lestrade says, “We were actually still _looking_ when the, uh, shoot-out occurred,” as Sherlock makes a disparaging noise, “this isn’t a Western, Lestrade,” then the DI continues, “ _Shooting_ , fine, Sherlock, shut up. Porter Hart. His kid sister was killed when she was six. Mauled by a hunting wolfhound. You can guess how. The owner ended up fined and in jail and the dog was put down.”

Sherlock sniffs. “Apparently, the whole event really stayed with Hart.”

“So bit of luck then,” John says between gritted teeth. “The shooting.”

And as much as John is fascinated by the Holmes brothers, as much as he wants to experience living and breathing in their Faraday cage, he is monumentally furious because they also lock him out constantly, intentionally or unintentionally forgetting to tell him things and expecting him to trail after them, like the faithful in the desert.

He can hear his heartbeat in his ears and Lestrade says something to Sherlock, about the arrest, or more details for the case, John could care less at this moment; he’s realised something and he takes out his phone.

He remembers Mycroft saying, ‘Puns are such despicable little things.’

 _You knew as soon as Sherlock did. No one deigned to tell me. JW_

John doesn’t wait for a reply and he doesn’t know if Lestrade leaves or not, he grabs his coat and mumbles something about going out.

He sees Sherlock’s surprise writ large, the bandage wrapping him as if he’s broken a wing, right before John disappears from 221b.

He ignores his phone when it vibrates.

-

His feet take him wherever and it’s fucking cold, but John doesn’t particularly care, he thinks he could be steaming into the air, his blood is running so hot and angry.

Of course, the broken little soldier fellow, he’s the anchor, dragging the ocean floor. He tags along after the combined might of the Holmes brothers, like a child chasing a falling star or searching for the end of a rainbow only to find it’s impossible, it’s all impossible.

He walks and walks and walks because he’s gone and fallen from a suicidal height and it’s possible he might never recover.

After a while, he’s not sure he can feel his feet.

And a while after that, he wonders what the hell he’s doing.

Somewhere on the later side of 2 a.m. and the black car finds John. He ignores it and it keeps pace with him, trundling alongside the kerb until he’s almost wishing he had his gun on him.

He’s the one with the gun. People tend to forget that.

The car finally comes to a stop by a telephone box and John remembers the ringing phones trailing him, his curiosity getting the better of him and that’s how it usually is, he’s wanted danger, he’s always followed his curiosity sometimes to the detriment of his head or his heart, but never the two at once.

This is new. John isn’t sure when that happened.

Anthea steps from the car, heels giving her an inch on John, her brunette hair pulled back and John thinks things would’ve been easier if he’d kept pestering her, just to get her name. But then, he wouldn’t be wandering London at two in the morning, associating Mycroft’s kidnapping and Sherlock’s ludicrously demanding texts with the red of a phone box.

 _Could be dangerous._

Mycroft was right: John does miss the war, but he doesn’t need to with Mycroft and Sherlock; they are their own kind of war, one John’s in the middle of, a battlefield he only catches stretches of and every blink has him wanting to see more.

Curiosity. The only thing outweighing it is how far he’s fallen.

“I’m to take you home,” Anthea says disinterestedly and John thinks, Nothing changes.

“No, thank you,” he says. “Lovely night for a walk.”

“He’ll be upset,” she replies without looking up from her phone.

“Then he can be upset. Surely he can figure out why I’m out here. He doesn’t have to _fetch_ me.”

Anthea shrugs, dislodging strands of hair, and she waits; somewhere inside John, he knows Mycroft told her to wait, to give him another chance to change his mind.

He should be scared Mycroft would predict such a thing, he should be scared, but he’s not. Sherlock would predict the same thing except his natural antagonism would have John refuse, then accept with an ulterior motive.

John doesn’t work with ulterior motives.

Taking a deep breath, he holds it in like the last oxygen he’ll ever get until his chest burns, closing his eyes to lean against the phone box, then he exhales.

“Fine. Baker Street.”

He climbs into the car and stares at the buildings as they start to smear together.

The brothers will still forget him and he’ll still chase after them, careless, but sometimes it’s a bloody great adventure, even with all the heartache.

One day, it might really leave him in the valley of the shadow of death, but John’s ignored death since he was little, since he patched up soldiers whose eyes almost lost their light, since he came back alive in pieces.

His pieces are mending, with the thrum and beat of adrenaline and the tug-give of the specific gravity in 221b, the universe expanding and collapsing between the three of them.

He thinks he just said goodbye to the final shred of his decency because he’s still that same child, climbing trees and not caring how he gets down. He’s never grown out of it and now he won’t because his phone vibrates again and maybe, just maybe he has it in him to let it go. As usual.

 _You deserve your anger. We don’t always consider. MH_

Others, John thinks, you don’t always consider others. But they can learn. As intelligent as they are, they should learn quickly.

 _Glad the omniscience is working. JW_

A reply appears immediately.

 _There were a few gears loose in the machinery. Repairs have been made. MH_

He refuses to laugh and checks the rest.

 _Might have blown up the kitchen. Too early to tell. SH_

 _Chemical spill in the kettle. Will need new kettle if you ever want tea again. Maybe a shiny one. Better settings. SH_

John sighs. Neither of them can apologise like normal people. It’s a family trait.

 _You can buy me a new one. And open a window. JW_

-

He makes a point of being noisy when he gets out of the car, which is harder than it seems, asking the driver if he got his scarf back, bidding Anthea a good night and asking her name again for the hell of it, slamming the door, just so Sherlock can see John exiting Mycroft’s car. When he glances up, Sherlock’s holding the curtains apart, his face pale like an undiscovered moon and John hopes Sherlock’s clenching his teeth. Maybe he’s got that expression of his like he’s trying to grow fangs.

John takes his time. Deciding you’re willing to make a commitment to the men who might kill you takes time.

Sherlock’s on the sofa when John gets into the flat and hangs his coat, then he stands with his hands on his hips because he ought to say something, but nothing comes to mind, so he stands with his hands on his hips and Sherlock peers at him as if John is some new specimen he’s not sure he’s seen before.

“John,” he says in greeting, then his mouth twists and John waits. The window’s open and there are swiped-at black marks on the kitchen ceiling and the kettle looks innocuously fine, except for the thin curl of smoke wafting from it.

He bins the kettle.

“John,” Sherlock says again, as if his name is getting Sherlock stuck somewhere, but John just sits down in his chair, opens the old copy of the newspaper and flips around until he finds something interesting.

“Lestrade left you something,” Sherlock finally says and John curls the paper edge to see him gesture to John’s laptop, a folder perched on top of it. “If you wanted to type up the case.”

John waits.

“And he said he owes you a pint. For being a saint.”

That makes John laugh and he hears Sherlock laugh, a push of air. “I don’t know what makes you a saint, I am merely quoting the good DI.”

There it is. John smiles to himself behind the newspaper, all interest gone, before he folds it to catch Sherlock’s eye.

“I’m surprised you didn’t think it was a werewolf, Sherlock. All the evidence pointed to it,” he says, “obvious, quite obvious,” feeling lightheaded and ridiculous and it only gets worse when Sherlock grins.

“Not a full moon. Had to rule it out. Those werewolf types are rather particular.”

“Shame.”

Sherlock nods as if it really is a mighty damn shame and John’s grinning like six shades of fool and the flat still smells of chemicals and cold air.

“I’d make tea except I can’t since my kettle mysteriously disappeared under questionable circumstances.”

“Any ransom demands?”

John’s brain is fizzing out in short bursts, colours lighting up the edges of his vision and he says, “No, no demands, no cut-out letters, no phone calls.”

“Disappointing,” Sherlock says, voice dropping deep and he never looks away from John, his eyes becoming the sparks John sees in his brain. “You might consider hiring a detective.”

“I could do. If I knew a good one.” He stands, which is a mistake because he might pass out and he’s a doctor, for pete’s sake, he’s had training and he’s old enough to know better and he’s survived hellish conditions only to come back to London to maybe pass out in his own flat and hit his head and bleed onto the rug which magnificently hides bloodstains all because Sherlock Holmes is grinning like a mad, bright thing somewhere in the lost vicinity of 3 a.m.

He gives his hands a little shake, for balance, and takes the low road. “I’m off to bed.”

“Long day?” Sherlock asks passively, examining the sleeve of his dressing gown.

“Yes, some bloody great bastard kept whining about how he’d been shot and he needed tea, possibly to make up for extensive blood loss. He’s the melodramatic, high-maintenance type. Fancies himself a genius or something equally ludicrous. Does a lot of talking sometimes. You might’ve seen him around.”

John really took the low, low road, but Sherlock’s profile changes, John can tell he’s smiling, hiding it away.

“Good night, John.”

“Go to sleep. There’s a rumour going about that you’ve been shot.”

“Nasty things, rumours. And who can sleep when it’s this boring and quiet?”

“I’m not giving you your violin back.”

“Ah, the melodramatic, high-maintenance type!” Sherlock points accusingly.

John points back. “ _Sleep_.”

Somehow he breaks out of orbit and makes it to bed and his heart hasn’t yet left him to run spinning free.

-

He has to work, an actual proper job, not this romanticised sprinting around London after jewel thieves or villainous murderers, he has to work and when he gets back to 221b, the flat is empty.

Which is mildly concerning since Sherlock has a good week or so of healing left to do.

He checks his phone and finds he’s collecting texts.

 _Gone out. Wasn’t shot in the leg, Dr. Watson. SH_

John might kill Sherlock. It could happen. Lucky he’s been following the detective because he’s picked up a few tips and tricks and he could probably make it look like an accident. Or he could just hide the body. The rug could help.

 _The shoulder is fine. I’m not bleeding copious amounts on the unsuspecting citizenry. SH_

 _What are these places and why are they so crowded. No wonder crime is rampant. SH_

 _I found him. Will bring him back. I consider it my duty to the Department of Defence. MH_

The Holmes brothers can’t do apologies or comfort very well. John supposes it’s the thought that counts and he remembers he has some laundry to sort.

He’s digging a sock out of the leg of a pair of jeans when he hears movement downstairs and then there’s that displacement of atoms, the air separating slowly and the brothers are in the flat together.

Quietly, quietly, John makes his way until he can see them, but they can’t see him, though they can always see him; this time, he’s maybe 85% (90 if he’s generous) sure they don’t know he’s there.

Mycroft sets a box on the little coffee table and then Sherlock appears. They’re standing, close, Sherlock rubbing at his shoulder as he frowns, holding onto Mycroft’s coat with his free hand as if he’s balancing.

They don’t talk because John’s learned they don’t need to, so attuned they resonate at some unheard frequency, and it’s there in the displacement of atoms.

“You’re going to make him angry again,” Mycroft says and Sherlock jerks as if Mycroft’s pinched him.

“I sent him a text. Absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“He worries anyway. You can’t stop him.”

Sighing, Mycroft grasps his brother’s hand that’s gripping his coat and Sherlock kind of leans into him, frowning harder, as if he’s irritated by the sequence of events, but Mycroft still wears his appearance of continuous amusement.

“So, Mycroft, when are we going to discuss it.”

“Soon. Can’t rush the healing process. Should’ve gotten out of the way of the bullet, Sherlock.”

Sherlock scowls, pushes his thumb against his brother’s neck and he tips Mycroft’s head, like he’s searching and all the secrets will simply fall out, and Mycroft lets him, as if Sherlock already knows those secrets.

John is rather surprised, all these touches he witnesses between the two standoffish brothers, so aloof to everything else, except maybe him.

And obviously each other.

No, now that he thinks about it, John is actually surprised he isn’t surprised. It makes a crumpled and crushed sort of sense because he’s never met anyone like them and he’s sure they’ve never met anyone like them either.

It’s probably always been them, together, striking against the world, one idiot at a time. Though in Mycroft’s case, it’s more likely entire populations.

His body is shuddery, giving a little shake without his input and then Mycroft kisses Sherlock on the forehead.

“Everything about you makes people worry,” he says.

“Usually for their lives,” Sherlock replies, tries to one-shoulder shrug him away and Mycroft laughs, the pride in his smile matching the pride in Sherlock’s tone.

No one like them. John thinks if he had to choose whom to fall in love with, of course he unconsciously picks the alien beings.

He wonders what they have to discuss. It has to wait until Sherlock’s healed and for a brief flash of a moment, John hopes they really don’t want him to assassinate someone, only because Sherlock might want to be on hand for that. It could be intriguing, but _no_ , he’ll stick with ‘legwork’ and maybe he won’t complain ever again.

He heads back up the stairs and tosses a few shoes around so they know he’s there.

Right on cue, Mycroft calls to him, “John?” and he answers, “Be right there.”

When he comes down, Sherlock’s carrying the box and a disgruntled expression. A new kettle, and John knows Sherlock went out to find it with his naturally unhappy what-is-wrong-with-society disposition and instead, Mycroft found him and he’s the one who bought it, but insisted Sherlock present it.

Thank God Mycroft found him. Who knows what Sherlock would’ve appeared with, most likely nothing for John. Chemicals. Live crickets. Agar. A mismatched set of cadaver toes. Stale bakery cookies to poison. Sodium bicarbonate.

John smiles, because _of course_.

It slams into him, like a hammer to his ribs, he wants so much and he won’t say because it might split them all apart.

“Shiny,” he says, “better settings.”

-

The next two weeks are a rollercoaster ride John apparently bought the ticket for though he doesn’t remember the transaction.

It was probably the day he moved into 221b. Maybe he really did sell his soul to the devil; it must’ve been appallingly easy.

If he didn’t know better, John would think Sherlock was bipolar, because he’s not a sociopath like he claims, but he actually does go through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and by the second day, John was texting Lestrade for any cold cases he had, _please send them over or I shall come get them myself at gunpoint._

He doesn’t always like to intimidate, but he can, when the occasion calls for it.

And Sherlock calls for it. Or rather, John’s sanity around Sherlock calls for it.

Sherlock still can’t wander too far, though John heads to the clinic every morning and that’s enough to almost have his feet chattering as he walks; Sherlock out of sight is Sherlock who can get into trouble.

Well, Sherlock can get into trouble even when John’s watching. Sometimes John thinks he does it on purpose, a cracked sort of attempt to impress John, because Sherlock’s an idiot.

John’s already impressed.

His life has become a series of impossible, unpredictable events. And now there’s a perfect storm of them occurring like a slow-spinning funnel that doesn’t leave Baker Street.

There’s the day Sherlock solves three cases in an afternoon, goes to take a shower while still working on the fourth and as John’s straightening the kitchen to accommodate the kettle and new mugs (the others cracked under pressure experiments), Sherlock bursts out into the main room, holding a towel around himself, dripping everywhere as he searches desperately for a pen, “a pen, John, _a pen_ , or Mrs. McAllister is going to get away with it.”

Whatever ‘it’ is, John doesn’t really care, too concerned with getting Sherlock his bloody pen, so he can get back in the shower. Water everywhere, running down Sherlock and the swaying sensation is in John’s head and lungs, and then Sherlock gives him a damp, ink-stained piece of paper.

“Text that to Lestrade.”

He’s written so fast, there are clumps of ink and it smears on John’s fingertips.

When Sherlock reappears, reasonably dry and clothed, he says, “You’ve got black on your chin.”

There’s the day Mycroft stops by with more files for Sherlock, these are more stiff-collared cases with the whiff of foreign espionage on them like a faint floral perfume and Sherlock crinkles his nose accordingly. Then they get into a hard-fought battle of words, ignoring the moral high ground, whole cannonades of syllables and semicolons and John sits back, like the local villagers safe on the hill, watching the fireworks.

Watching them fight is quite the pastime, all slurs of vocabulary and only every once in a great while does John file away a word to look up; he’s very impressed with their mental thesauruses. Mycroft fights with a sneer and politeness; Sherlock tries to bludgeon you to death without touching you. They’re both out to finish the fight as neatly as possible, with the perfect statement to put paid to any further arguments and John just wants a cuppa and biscuits so he can follow along in the grandstands.

There’s the day Sherlock won’t get off the sofa until John almost sits on him to watch the telly.

There’s the day Sherlock won’t get off the sofa until John almost spills tea on him when Sherlock grabs his wrist, “John, why is it so bright, turn the sun off, John.”

There’s the day Sherlock corners John in his bedroom and says, “Where is it.”

“Where’s what.”

His eyes seem to stare _through_ John. “Where’s my violin.”

“Oh that old thing,” John says, licking his lips to cover his amusement because everything annoys Sherlock these quiet healing days and John’s decided to be amused instead of inconvenienced. “I…well, I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember,” Sherlock echoes in pale disbelief. “How can you not remember. Recent blow to the head causing memory issues?”

“No, no, memory’s fine.”

“So you _do_ remember.”

“Of course, you idiot, you think I’d just give it to you because you _demanded_ it?”

Something flares quick in Sherlock’s gaze and then he whirls away. “Never mind. I’ll find it. Challenge accepted, John.”

“No, Sherlock, _wait_.”

He’s patient, he can be, he _can be_.

There’s the day John’s changing the dressing on the wound, checking how it looks and he’s about to pronounce it doing well, healing faster than he expected, but Sherlock gets a fistful of John’s collar and pulls.

John follows, suddenly unsure, because Sherlock’s staring at him with a new expression he hasn’t learned yet.

“I found my violin,” Sherlock says, grinning with sudden triumph, “you didn’t try hard enough, I’m disappointed,” and John tugs himself back.

“I live to disappoint you. You don’t get to play it yet, even though you’re healing quite well.”

“You did good. Good work.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He finishes re-bandaging Sherlock and Sherlock stays quiet.

There’s the day Lestrade drops in, his usual jogging up the stairs, and he and Sherlock go through case after case, sprawling on the floor, and John fetches Chinese for everyone, and they litter cartons and containers and papers everywhere.

Going over a multiple shooting, Lestrade says, “You know you’re lucky, Sherlock. My gran’d say you were born under a good star,” and Sherlock pffts, shooing away such nonsense like it’s dust.

“Luck,” he says with apathy and Lestrade pokes at a pea pod.

“Luck,” the DI insists.

Later, when John’s making a stab at creating piles out of the papers and stacks out of the containers, Lestrade says something to Sherlock at the door, but all John hears in the murmurs is his own name.

Then Sherlock slithers onto the sofa, saying, “Luck.”

For some reason, John wants to kiss him just for saying the word.

There’s the day Sherlock sleeps for more than six hours together and Mycroft appears while he’s asleep and John randomly thinks of those fairy tales where the two halves are always missing each other, one asleep while the other’s awake.

“I see you haven’t killed him,” Mycroft says, “and vice versa.”

John smiles. “You were right: the rug hides the bloodstains.” Mycroft laughs and John notices how it’s different from his brother’s laugh and he wants to compare endlessly; his hands are moving on their own again, so he keeps talking. “But it’s been a near thing. I think it’s better for everyone if Sherlock doesn’t try to stop bullets again any time soon.”

“Of course. Sherlock could stand to be healthier.”

Mycroft takes Sherlock’s chair and John is somewhat surprised because his chair is usually Mycroft’s, but he’s not going to quibble.

“Tea?”

“Please.” The elder Holmes isn’t exactly a chatterbox, but he knows how to do polite conversation and do it smoothly, so John’s a bit suspicious when Mycroft goes quiet, fingers tracing the metal on the side of the chair.

“Busy day at work?” John asks, just for something to ask, and he doesn’t mean it in an _hi, honey, I’m home_ sort of way, he doesn’t, his cheeks go hot and he lets the cold water run over his wrists.

“Oh, no, nothing too exciting,” Mycroft says and John wonders what would be ‘exciting.’ “It’s Tuesday. I prefer to escape on Tuesdays.”

John messes with those shiny, better settings. “Doldrums?”

“Meetings.”

“So, doldrums.”

He glances up to see Mycroft smile and he’s watching John with the same expression Sherlock had, the one John doesn’t know the definition of yet.

“If there’s one thing you and Sherlock share, it’s a finer sense of boredom,” John says, out of nowhere, his mouth talking without his permission and he wants to fight his tongue, where in the fucking hell did that come from.

He remembers the crime scene, _the_ crime scene where Sherlock was shot, when Mycroft said he was there ‘to share.’ John forgot to ask.

“Sherlock and I share many things,” Mycroft is saying, “it’s the curse of DNA. Boredom is just one of the multitude.”

“Woe upon the Holmeses and all that rubbish,” John mutters as the kettle beeps and he jumps, a new electric kettle, a new series of beeps and he is on edge, tripping over himself as if he’s fifteen and he’s just discovered the glories and agonies of hormones.

When John looks up again, Mycroft is sorting through the folder from atop his computer, the Porter Hart case, and he pauses on the photographs.

“He didn’t thank you, did he,” he says and John takes a minute to be confused as he carts their cups from the kitchen.

“Thank me?”

“You’re a doctor, John, you do deserve thanks.” Mycroft has that intensity, burning controlled under his skin, and John can see it come to the surface as Mycroft taps his mouth with his fingertips, then he gives a quick half-smile, like a sideways apology. “And being here, dealing with my brother, I’m not sure you deserve that. As I said, punishment.”

John’s struck dumb. “No, no—not at all. Okay, yes, maybe, at times, Sherlock is a bit—demanding, but. It’s nothing compared to…”

“To?”

John thinks, Well, you know this, better than I do and I was _living_ it. Tiny little room. Soldier’s pay. Pointless therapy. Nightmares. Scars. Nothing else.

He says, “Doldrums.”

Mycroft’s face clears, as if he was sitting in the dark, he has a genuine smile and John smiles back because he can’t help it. They drink their tea and John watches Mycroft’s throat work with each sip.

Between them, they share the file, discussing the case, and John jots notes on what to type up later and what to leave out.

“I’d say leave out the part where Sherlock almost gets himself bitten by a dog he thought had eaten evidence,” Mycroft says, “but I think your audience might find it entertaining. A comedy of errors. Bit of theatre and schadenfreude.”

John laughs. “I wasn’t an eyewitness to that. But the look on his face when he told me. ‘A dog just tried to remove my fingers, John, I think that would be our cue to go.’” That wide-eyed affronted horror, _the world is out to get me_ expression Sherlock does so well. “I’ll have to get Lestrade’s take. I was too busy thinking of a seven-letter word for ‘fireplace fixture’,” and Mycroft’s eyes shine with mirth, that shade bluer than Sherlock’s.

“Pity.” They’re sitting close, knees together to balance the pages and photographs and John can feel the warmth from his body. “The good DI always tells an interesting tale though. You’ll have to quote him verbatim.”

Mycroft leaves before his brother wakes.

-

It’s a rare quiet day at 221b. John had to work and Sherlock had to go to hospital to have a checkup on his wound; “John, you’ve looked at it, that should be good enough,” he whined, and John pointed at the stairs, “ _Go_.”

Now John’s home, the flat’s been empty for over an hour and he’s reading, washed clean of the day, when he hears voices and footsteps on the stairs.

Sherlock and Mycroft.

“I’ve passed, John,” Sherlock says immediately through the door.

“Passed.”

“He is physically fit,” Mycroft says wryly.

“But his mental state is still in question?” John asks and Mycroft tries to hide a laugh and Sherlock stares at them as if they are the marauding enemy to be decimated by fire.

“I say ‘fit’.” Mycroft skips over Sherlock’s silent threats. “But that just means he’s able to run around London again like an overstimulated child.”

“While you are _always_ able to sit behind your desk and manipulate the ignorant world like a cut-rate megalomaniacal villain,” Sherlock retorts, clutching his scarf like he’s about to wrap it around Mycroft’s neck and hang him from the hook.

John sighs. “So everyone’s back to normal then.”

“For the most part,” Mycroft says, as Sherlock flops into his chair and John doesn’t miss how the detective reaches to rub at his shoulder.

He’s not completely healed, but Sherlock will go on as if it’s merely a scratch. And that’s where John comes in, chasing after him, the nanny for this overstimulated genius child.

“I’d get up, but I’m comfy,” he says because he doesn’t care, he’s not offering tea, they won’t drink it anyway until it’s inconvenient for him; somehow, they always know.

But the brothers don’t say anything. Mycroft sets down his umbrella and removes his coat and John watches his fingers handle the fabric, the open slide of his suit jacket as he drags a chair over to them. Sherlock is staring off into space, hands together, as if he’s got a case on his mind and Mycroft, when he gets settled, eyes Sherlock, as if he’s trying to message him telepathically.

So John goes back to his book. If they want to talk, they will, whether he’s there or not, they talk about him in front of him and he’s learning to live with it.

Those idiosyncrasies one puts up with. He’s gone and fallen, so it’s his own fault.

A few paragraphs, and he feels a weight on his chest, the iron-lung suspension, the displacement of air and molecules.

For all his inherent whirlwind of chaos, Sherlock can be quiet when he wants and John feels like prey as Sherlock watches him turn a page; out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mycroft watching them both.

It’s like another time, another place, remnant of the mountain desert, where he knew his every movement was being catalogued. His fingertips prickle.

Bloody hell. His mouth is dry.

“Fine,” he mutters, abandoning the book and it’s not a retreat, just a regroup in the kitchen where he can put objects between him and them. He doesn’t actually want to make tea, he feels like he’s been swimming in tea; with Sherlock not wanting to eat, John had to coax him into it with food as an addendum to tea.

Nanny.

He putters around as if he’s actually doing something, but they follow him, Mycroft keeping a careful distance in the doorway, Sherlock skimming in with his usual energy so that John has to catch a precariously balanced beaker. He sets it down and grabs the kettle; again, he might have cause to use it, again on himself.

Mycroft takes a breath. “We have something to discuss with you. Rather, it’s more of a question to ask you.”

“ _Mycroft_.” Sherlock’s gaze is narrowed, warning and caution and they have a brief staredown while John decides he’s been hunted, he _is_ prey, the two brothers holding him in the kitchen.

But he isn’t going to run.

He wants to see what’s about to happen with his eyes wide open.

So John sees it like a true shot when Sherlock darts around the table and kisses him.

Hand on his face, mouth pressed to his, long, once, twice, and an urge of tongue and then Sherlock’s gone. Mycroft has his half-smirk, as if he’s curious, and he’s suddenly next to John, so close he can feel the heat of Mycroft’s body bleeding through the layers and tweed.

“John,” Mycroft says, quiet, serious, like the night he kidnapped him and John’s shaking as Mycroft runs a thumb along his jaw and it’s instinct, it’s pure, John following the touch before Mycroft puts his mouth to John’s, where Sherlock’s was not a moment ago.

He tastes John too, as if chasing his brother.

As soon as Mycroft releases him, John is choking, that potent focus blazing on him, those twin devil smiles and he’s nothing like them, he’s fascinated _by them_.

“That’s your question?” he says, licking his lips, old nervous habit, and he can taste them both, he _can_ , he _knows_ , like when the bullet spun him to the ground.

“You watch us, John,” Sherlock says.

“As I bloody well should. You two keep me in a war zone,” John retorts, angry, because they shouldn’t know, they shouldn’t be able to sniff this out, _this single thing_ , he needs at least one secret to keep to himself, to keep him warm.

Mycroft’s smile disappears, settling away much like how he steps back. “Of course, we’ve ambushed you—“

“Which was the best course of action,” Sherlock hisses at Mycroft, “because surprise gives the most honest reaction as opposed to _talking him into an early grave_ , listing reasons and dull logical—“

“You’ve discussed this,” John says in awe. He notices their body language, Sherlock pressing eager, Mycroft giving John space but staying close, as quietly possessive as Sherlock is bluntly possessive. “You both want this. Do you expect me _to choose_?”

The hammer striking his ribs and he could never ever choose. If he lived to be a thousand.

He remembers Mycroft saying, ‘To share.’ His heart is about to leave him as he waves a hand between the three of them and he says, “It’s all or nothing. The three of us.”

Sherlock huffs impatient, like when he thinks John’s being spectacularly idiotic, which makes Mycroft smile, a vanishing quirk to his mouth before he says, “John, we wouldn’t ask you to choose because we’re selfish,” and Sherlock says, insistent, “Of course all or nothing. You watch _us_ , John.”

He should have seen it coming. They know, they knew. They saw it written all over him.

John isn’t stupid; he has eyes, he should have seen it coming and now he can see the connections.

“But that isn’t the only reason. That’s not why. You’ve wanted this for a while.”

He’s still holding the teakettle out like a shield and he hurriedly sets it on the counter. His brain is going fast, in detonating loops and he idly wonders if this is what it’s like in their heads all the time, lighting striking everywhere, electricity let fly.

He leans on his hands, glancing at them in turn and they don’t flinch, don’t look away.

He has to _think_ , because they want this independent of him, separate from what he’s wanted since he met them, they’ve created this scenario on their own.

Him, because of him, John Watson, ex-army doctor and his hands are steady.

Sherlock’s fingers tapping out a rhythm John’s heard before, notes in the middle of the night. Mycroft with his hands in his pockets as if waiting to discuss the weather and the three of them are dangerous, the weather is the least of their worries.

Thunder in John’s head as lightning hits ground with a thought and he remembers his surprise over his lack of surprise, their spontaneous touches between each other, Sherlock holding onto Mycroft’s coat, Mycroft leaning into his brother. The crumpled and crushed way it all makes sense.

He doesn’t know how to ask.

“Ah,” Mycroft says with a nod. Setting his palm over Sherlock’s restless hand, their fingers twine easily, familiar. He pulls his little brother to him and Sherlock grins, as if this is the good part of a fight, right before Mycroft slides a hand into his hair and kisses him.

Mouths moving in deep rhythm, Sherlock pulls greedy at Mycroft’s lapels and Mycroft wraps an arm around him, dragging them tighter together.

The thunder in John’s brain is deafening, in heavy, thick pulses that sound like his heartbeat.

John has secrets he holds dear.

The Holmes brothers do too and they’re sharing with him, they want to tell him and keep him and he’s what’s keeping them warm.

They want to show him what it means to be with them and he’s dangerous, _he_ fascinates _them_.

Foreheads together, Sherlock and Mycroft breathe in sync, Mycroft’s fingers wrapped around Sherlock’s wrist where he holds Mycroft’s tie, stringing them to each other.

Sherlock says, “Problem?” and his voice is deep dark and John sees their question all laid out in front of him, like spinning magic from thin air.

“No, not at all.” He swallows. “You two—how long?”

“Years,” Mycroft says, the word full to the brim with explanation, and Sherlock’s body tenses before he kisses Mycroft again, stubborn as if John might try to stop him.

And he knows they’ve never told another soul. No one else they’ve trusted with this.

Just him.

He wonders if they know how they’ve broken his universe and rebuilt it because he shouldn’t need them, but he does, in some sort of desperate, destined fashion, good stars and luck and the spill of his blood that brought him back to England. Their matching eyes gaze at him and maybe, just maybe they do know; maybe, just maybe he’s done the same to them.

For a moment, it’s as if he can read their minds and he has that shudder of want, the eerie premonition.

Gone and fallen; he knocked on the world’s door and this is who answered.

“All or nothing,” he says and those twin devil smiles are back, capturing him in their special brand of gravity, how they ignore the laws of physics.

Long reckless lines confined in their tailored suits, and he wants to see them let loose.

John doesn’t choose, _he doesn’t have to choose_ , he just reaches and when he kisses Sherlock, the detective tastes like his brother and tea and John thinks, Home.

A heavy palm on his spine, fingertips slow along his vertebrae and John pulls their kiss back into the touch, Mycroft pressing in, his hand slipping to John’s hip, squeezing tight.

Luxuriant polished cadence in John’s ear, Mycroft says, “It’s not the only reason,” mouth against John’s skin.

The thunder in John’s head breaks.

-

Sherlock’s bedroom is a disaster, maybe a health hazard, but John’s is clean and the bed doesn’t want to hold the three of them properly, he’s laughing as they keep each other from falling.

Their combined curiosity could power the world and create new mythologies, so they take their time and they have to hold back because of the new red scars on Sherlock’s skin.

He curses John and Mycroft, voice black with threats, “I’ll kill you in your sleep and I know many inventive, _effective_ ways to do it, I’ve been thinking about it _for years._ ”

Then John drags a hand down his body and he remembers Sherlock saying, ‘His hands, Mycroft,’ as Sherlock stretches like a pampered cat.

He thinks again, To share, and he says it, “To share,” and Mycroft knows what he means.

“Yes, we had been discussing sharing and Sherlock’s inability to do so since he can be quite possessive,” Mycroft says, tracing Sherlock’s teeth marks along John’s arm. “But the question wasn’t sharing you.”

“Oh, that was a foregone conclusion, was it,” John says, taking his arm back, rather irritated because it’d be an interesting day when they _didn’t_ predict something correctly and Mycroft kisses him, as if to redefine the word ‘sharing’, tongue sliding against his own.

“No,” Sherlock says, “Mycroft was under some moronically vain delusion I wouldn’t share _him._ ”

“Separately, I had an idea about the case,” Mycroft says, winding his tie around his knuckles, which somehow ended up under a pillow.

“Dog catcher.”

“Dog catcher.”

The sheets are warm across his legs and Mycroft’s knee presses against his thigh and his palm is resting on Sherlock’s pulse in his chest.

John licks his lips.

“Do you know how many configurations we could make?” Sherlock asks, eyes like ice-fire, his fingers twitching as if he’s rapidly calculating, and Mycroft sighs, warm air over John’s skin.

“We’re not twenty, Sherlock, none of us,” John starts, but Sherlock says, “Oh, come on, John, _configurations_ , so many ways—“

“Sherlock, you’re healing. And we have time,” Mycroft admonishes. “Write them down, we aren’t doing them all _now_ ,” and John’s laughing again.

Someone’s phone buzzes, and John and Mycroft watch Sherlock scramble about to find the culprit. He folds his long, naked lines at the end of the bed, the phone lighting up his face.

“Lestrade.”

John has stolen Mycroft’s tie, pulling the silk between his fingers. “And.”

“Dead man in his bathtub.”

“Did he drown,” Mycroft says.

Sherlock glares at his brother and Mycroft shrugs, shoulder moving against John and John says, “Bathtub. Dead man. Logical conclusion. Makes sense to me.”

“It makes sense to John,” Mycroft says.

“Why did I agree to have anything to do with the two of you,” Sherlock mutters, texting quickly.

“Us?” John says and he uses his best confused expression. “You and Mycroft propositioned me.”

Mycroft’s lips scrunch in distaste. “’Propositioned’ has such pejorative and cheap connotations, John. More like—“

“Acquired,” Sherlock says, not looking up. “We acquired you.”

John thinks he should object, but he’s naked, and Sherlock and Mycroft are naked, so he’s not sure he should object too strenuously.

“Get dressed, John. Lestrade is waiting with a man dead in his bathtub and a dead dog in the kitchen.”

“Dog catcher?” John suggests and Mycroft laughs, sliding out from the sheets.

John throws on his jeans, shirt and jumper, and Mycroft kisses him to get the tie back, and John can’t help it, he has to watch Mycroft put himself back together, the man comes apart so beautifully, John hasn’t seen anything like it, and he slips into his clothes like pleasure in reverse.

Sherlock is exquisite no matter what he’s doing, whether he’s been shot, sleeping, raving like a mad man or even half-dressed, trousers and shirt with buttons undone everywhere, still texting hurriedly with Lestrade until John says, “I’m dressed, Sherlock, and the crime scene is waiting.”

“Yes, _yes_ , may be carbon monoxide, may be proper poison, Lestrade is, as usual, frustratingly remiss on providing the necessary information in a timely manner.”

“Crime scene, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, “I hear they’re good for solving crimes. Very helpful.”

“Practically littered with evidence,” John points out, rocking on his heels.

And Sherlock disappears in a spin of fabric, scowling, “You and you, get out of my flat!”

-

There’s a dead man in the bath, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling and no blood anywhere.

The man’s tongue is black and he’s wearing a suit and John’s almost grateful. Something new.

“Poison,” Sherlock guesses happily and John says, “Could be ink.”

The detective gives him that look, _why do you have to spoil everything_ , and John smiles.

“Poison ink,” he says right as he thinks it, “chews on his pens, tends to get ink in his mouth, killer put poison in the ink.”

Lestrade grins, then clears his throat. “I like it. Inventive. Innovative. Forward-thinking.”

Sherlock sighs as if he’s trying to find his patience wherever he misplaced it.

John’s phone vibrates.

“Tell him to go away. Crime scene,” Sherlock says, gently pushing at the man’s top shirt button.

 _If there’s to be no chasing of criminals and Sherlock isn’t in a strop, I suggest dinner for us three. Sherlock can work on his list of configurations. On paper. MH_

This is new too, how John immediately grins like a maniacal fool, feeling stupid and lightheaded and it doesn’t matter because it all makes a crumpled and crushed sort of sense.

“Greek, not Italian,” Sherlock says from behind the bath and Lestrade says, “What? Please don’t talk to the corpse,” and John’s trying not to laugh.

“How did you—got it, Greek, not Italian,” he says as the DI sidles next to him.

“What’s he on about.”

“Dinner. Planning ahead.”

“In front of the corpse? Rather rude, isn’t it.”

“Why, Lestrade, I didn’t know you cared,” Sherlock smirks.

 _Deal._ John types, then he thinks for a moment and erases it.

 _You said that wasn’t the only reason. JW_

No immediate reply and he can picture Mycroft behind his desk, phone resting on top of national secrets. Waiting. Waiting for John to ask.

“Bloody omniscience,” John mumbles.

 _So what is the reason. JW_

 _You acquired us. What do you think, Dr. Watson? MH_

He thinks, I’ve gone and fallen. He thinks the brothers fascinate him like nothing else has before.

He thinks they’re different and brilliant, these people from another world they’ve created on their own and he wants to know everything he can about them, what makes them Sherlock and Mycroft.

He wants to know how they’ve broken his universe and rebuilt it, and whether they’ll do it over and over, again and again.

He wants the valley of the shadow of death and the chase of falling stars and what blood looks like on concrete and how the Holmes brothers are new, always new, infinitely new.

John rereads the text and smiles.

“John,” Sherlock says, “come look at this. This man doesn’t own a dog. So whose dog is that in the kitchen?”

 _Dinner. Sherlock wants Greek. JW_

**Author's Note:**

> You can comment at my LJ [here](http://bashfulbetty.livejournal.com/2790.html) if you like. :)


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